Anne Landis Swann - Author, Lecturer, Historian

Life in Marion about 250 years ago.  You need to be alert of those hiding in the tree line.  You need to know who wants to be free and who wants to stay under English rule.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Hello, I'm Jim Williams, and you're on the porch. I've got a jewel in my crown today because I have author, lecturer, and historian Ann Swann with us today. A special gift as far as I'm concerned. Hi, Ann.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Thank you for coming up on the porch.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Uh I'd like to start by asking you a little bit about how well, let's talk about your history a little bit, how you decided to become a historian, what intrigued you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Well, I was born and raised right here in McDowell County. I've never lived anywhere else and don't want to. Unless it would be maybe higher up in the mountains sometime. Um I've just always enjoyed stories about what happened long ago. Even when I was a child, I enjoyed hearing those. But I think the thing that really got me um started pursuing what I have done with writing and and researching was a man named Jim Haney, who I'm sure a lot of your listeners will remember, just passed away recently, which is a a great loss to all of us. Jim and I lived next door to each other for many, many decades in two different locations. But we remained neighbors for a long time, and I met him and uh we were both interested in the history of the community. And he had already done a lot of research and had a lot of material and documents and old pictures, and I got into going over to his house and looking at all these things, and um he was the first person to invite me to a McDowell Historical Society meeting and he encouraged me to pursue writing. He thought I had some ability, which was quite a compliment because he was such a great writer himself, and he was actually educated. I'm not educated. I'm a fly by the seat of your pants writer.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I can't say that I've read the whole book, I've but I do have your book, The Other Side of the River. It has a lot of words in it for me. I'm a picture guy. Uh words are hard, but it is so well done that uh it's it reads like it reads like a novel. It it reads f quickly and there's a storyline to it. I I really have enjoyed it. When you came in here today, before we started, uh I asked you if we could talk about the Native American population along the Catawba or wherever, along uh up in Old Fort or or wherever, because you go into really some deep things in this book about the Native Americans. Uh uh also, is this book still available? Can people buy this book still?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I don't have any copies left myself, but I believe Mountain Gateway Museum and the Carson House still have some.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Well, it's a it's a treasure for people that live in McDowell County. Um have you written any other books?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I wrote one prior to that. Uh it was um the one that I wrote because of Jim Haney, um, starting me getting interested in the Glenwood area.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

And um it was called Heart Pine, and it's basically about um what became Glenwood and surrounding areas. Oh it includes, you know, connected portions of McDowell County, but basically that was the focus of that one. So that was the first one I did, and if you read it, you'll know that it was a first book. And I recently did one for my dad's family, the Landis family.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Oh. Well, this one, this one is great. I don't know any other way to describe it. And and I have done a little writing myself, and I appreciate someone who's a wordsmith, and and you certainly are. You certainly get the point across. There's some characters in here. Uh uh there's a character in here right in the beginning that uh he goes off to fight and doesn't make it. The Indians get him. So let me shut up. Wherever you want to start, let's talk about uh well we'll let's talk about whatever you want to, but I'd like to start with Native Americans uh here in McDowell County, Bunkham County, wherever you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Well, I wish we knew more about those people. Um unfortunately, there have been limited archaeological studies done in McDowell. Um I know that recently Burke County had a a big discovery down there with uh the discovery of Jorah by Dr. David Moore. And Dr. Moore did spend some time earlier in McDowell County, um, out in the bottom land at Pleasant Gardens near the old Round Hill Cemetery and along what's now the Greenway in that vicinity. That is about all we have to substantiate the fact that there were Native Americans here. But we're fortunate to have pension applications of Revolutionary War soldiers, uh journal accounts, uh the colonial records of North Carolina, things like that to give us a little bit of insight into what was going on here after the French and Indian War.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Well, what uh you mentioned the Round Hill out there at the Greenway. What is that? Uh I thought that was where the McDowell family was buried.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

It is, and the Carsons. But what it is, according to geologists, is something called a Menadnock, which is a little unusual prominence, usually along a body of water. It has a rocky base, and it's a natural feature rather than um a constructed mound. Oh, really? Yes, and they're often mistaken for mounds, but although the Native Americans did not construct them, they were very intrigued by them. They live very close to nature, and anything unusual that occurred in nature attracted their attention. So they were attracted to these monadnoc features, and I believe they used them for ceremonies and probably burials also.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

So you think there might be Native Americans buried there at Round Hill?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I certainly do. Um the experts might disagree with me, but in uh a book about the McDowell family that was written in I think 1917 or 1915 by a McDowell descendant, it mentioned that the McDowells were buried there um where there was an old Indian burial ground. So that information had been passed down through the through time, and I believe that there are Native American burials.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

So would there have been a a neighborhood or a tr I'm gonna say a a tribal village here in Marion?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

There were more than one.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

There was one there near Round Hill, and there was a constructed mound there not too far from Round Hill. And for many years there was a remnant of it visible, but through plowing and cultivation it's not visible anymore. But that was the part that Dr. Moore was investigating. So we know from his findings that there was definitely a village there.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Now this would be Cherokee.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Actually, we don't know.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

I personally believe that it was, for lack of a better description, ancestors of the Cherokees as we came to know them.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Um Aboriginal people probably would be a better word. They were centuries ago.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Because the Cherokee I thought were more like uh Oklahoma and out west, and then they were kind of moved back to North Carolina. Am I wrong about that?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, yes and no. They started in North Carolina or in western North Carolina and and East Tennessee, Georgia, and they were taken to Oklahoma forcibly.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Okay. I gotta remember. Trail of Tears, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

They were taken from here on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma to the reservation.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

I see.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

I have a great, great, great grandmother who's buried in Oklahoma. She went prior to the Trail of Tears. She did not go with the the party that went then. She was already there. They were given an opportunity to leave of their own accord. And she did that.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Well, just because we have that fort up there in Old Fort, kind of indicates to me that we weren't on the best of terms with the Cherokee.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, no, we weren't. Um, this is a long, complicated story.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

All right, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

When European settlers first started arriving in this area. Well, let me back up even beyond that. We had Indian traders, as they were called, here before we had settlements. People were coming in trading with the Cherokees, and one of those was Hunting John McDowell. We don't know how early on he was here. I've always said there's a whole lot more hunting John that meets the eye that we know, but we do know that he traded with them long before um other people. And there there later were other guys who came in and traded. I think uh Thomas Birchfield, who lived out uh on Buck Creek, I think he was an one of the early traders. Uh George Cathy, the the builder of Cathy's Fort. Those men were here very early, even before they established homes here. And that trade helped open up the relationship between the European settlers and the Native Americans. And it was not a bad relationship because each had things that the other guy needed. And the trade was was what held the relationship together in my opinion. The thing that caused the rift was the British government. And they directed these Indian agents like Stuart and and people like that to stir up hostilities between the two so that the uh Native Americans would keep the settlers in line, so to speak, to keep them from spreading further away from British jurisdiction to keep them too busy to pursue their idea of freedom and breaking away.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

So the Indians were agents of the British, kind of, really?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, well they were pawns in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Th they didn't realize that everything the British promised them was never gonna happen. They believed that they would get their land back, they believed they would get guns and ammunition, and so that was why why they were listening to the British. And that was the thing that created all the hostility and the raids on the settlements and the need for forts. We didn't we didn't have any forts until 76, maybe 75.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

1775? In the book, the raids are vicious. Uh there's there's no quarter given when they when they attacked they they took care of business. And I suspect it went both ways.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

It did, of course.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Let's talk about uh day in the life of a of a Native American here in McDowell County. Pick any year you want to. What what are they up to?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Well, in McDowell County in in the early 1700s, this would have been hunting territory. The last known village, occupied village that I have been able to document was about 1760 and it would have been in the Woodlawn area.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

My goodness.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

And that was where you you mentioned the fellow in the book who left to fight and didn't come home. Right. John Long.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

He was killed there near Woodlawn, which was called Turkey Cove back in the day. Yep. Now we think of Turkey Cove as being further north. But that that whole area from from present-day Turkey Cove all the way down into the Woodlawn area was Turkey Cove back then. And he was killed in Turkey Cove in 1760. And that was about the last known occupied village.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

I do I did a lot of hiking around here, and I have a friend, uh Steve Pierce, who is known for all the hiking that he does. Are we ever, if we're hiking in in McDowell County, are we ever hiking on, let's say, original trails that were hiked by the Native Americans for hunting or whatever? Uh I I'm gonna go back. I of course everybody in McDowell County has seen Last of the Mohicans. They had those folks had trails that just like highways, footpaths that they all used. Are there some of those here in McDowell County?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Well, if you drive Highway 70 into Old Fort, you're on one of them.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Really?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

There were five major routes of Cherokee travel that converged in Old Fort.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And one of them, which um historians call the Sawali Nanahi Trail, which I believe is an error, but we won't go into that. Okay. Um it went across the mountains to the Swann River. And if you drive up Oktaba River Road, that is approximately portions of Oktaba River Road, I'm sure are portions of the Sawali and Nahi Trail.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

I have read some stuff about there were some attacks by the Cherokee on some uh Americans or settlers. I don't they weren't Americans at that time, I guess. And then one of the well-known figures, I I want to say Rutherford, but I'm not sure, and he gathered a bunch of men and went up into Black Mountain, kind of, and basically massacred a bunch of people. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

That's right. Uh Griffith Rutherford, he was the head of the Council of Safety that had been appointed to protect the frontier. And by the way, McDowell County was the frontier of America. This was as far as civilization had spread. When you were in Old Fort, you were standing on the line between designated Cherokee territory and where European settlement was allowed. Really. And if you took one foot beyond, you could lose your scalp.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Really?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Mm-hmm. So it the Western frontier was ever moving. And it didn't get to the places that I thought of as the frontier when I was growing up, like Dodge City and Tucson. Correct, yes. And you know, the places like that that we saw on the old westerns. And yes, that was the frontier eventually, but in 1776 it was right here. This was it.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Paint for me a picture. Are we we talking about guys dressed in buckskins and carrying long rifles? Is is that what we're looking at?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yes. That's exactly what you're looking at, especially the long rifles. That was one of the main necessities for existence on the frontier was the the long rifle.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Did the Indians have rifles?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yes. They were provided by the traders and and then by the British. But yes, they did have them eventually. And um the clothing was buckskin. Um one thing I think is you know not correct. Um they say that Daniel Boone wore the coonskin cap and you always see pictures of he hated coonskin caps. He always wore a felt hat. Oh, really? So some of that is Hollywood, but basically, yes, they they did wear those things.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Well, what about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett? Uh were they ever in this area?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Really?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yes. Daniel Boone visited Thomas Birchfield frequently. Thomas Birchfield lived at the junction of crooked I mean, excuse me, Buck Creek and Little Buck Creek.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

And um Daniel Boone came across the mountain. That was a another route of travel down what we call Buck Creek Road or Highway 80. He came down and visited him quite frequently when he was in the area. No kidding. And Daniel Boone was well acquainted with Hunting John McDowell. Hunting John's grandson was killed on an expedition with Boone.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Really? What about Davy Crockett?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Davy Crockett was much later on. He was a friend of the Carson family.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And he visited them them there quite often.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

So we've had some kind of famous people in our county, huh?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Still have some.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

All right, so uh we go through the the turmoil with the Indians. Was that still going on when the revolution broke out? Mm-hmm. It was.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

It it was going on. Well, the revolution had already broken out in the north.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

You know, Lexington and Concord and all that had already happened. And we were too busy trying to save our scalps to worry too much about that. Of course everybody was well aware of it and everybody had an opinion, and not everybody was gung-ho to break away from England.

unknown 21:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

It became a civil war here.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

And in other locations. It it was the first Civil War fought on American soil.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Well, so w some of the folks were for the British and some were not, of course. Most most fifth graders know that by now, I guess. All right, so let's say we're I'm a farmer in McDowell in 1776, and what's going to happen? Are the British troops gonna come into McDowell? Did they ever?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

No.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

No, not not British troops per se. What you had in McDowell were loyalists, and those were local people. They were your neighbors. They might even be your brother. They were people who had had held on to their loyalty to the mother country. And there were many reasons for that. Some of them that The only government they'd ever known. They they believed in it. They were loyal to it. They couldn't imagine ever breaking away from it. Some of them were afraid. What happens if I side with these patriots? And yes, I'd love to be free and able to make my own decisions and not have to pay all these taxes, but what happens if we lose? You know, and and they were they were worried about that. So they were hesitant. Some of them just wanted to remain neutral. They just wanted to go on with their daily lives, sure, do their thing and not have to take sides.

SPEAKER_04 22:33

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

And this same sentiment carried over into the the American Civil War in 1861. The same reasons motivated them then. There there was not a lot of difference in the thinking. Um but anyway, you would have as a farmer, you would have continued to work your plot of ground with one eye on the tree line, because there could be Cherokees behind every tree.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Cherokees, but not necessarily the British soldiers.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

No. No, it well, the loyalists sometimes rode with the Cherokees and dress like Cherokees on these raids. So your neighbor down the road here, if he was a loyalist, could have been in the raiding party, but you might not have known it because he looked like dragging canoe, who was the the leader of some of these Cherokees.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

There was times when you really didn't feel safe because you didn't know who you were your friend was or who the enemy was.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Right. You would have been afraid a lot of the time, and afraid for your family. And imagine being a a woman with small children. Um they had backbreaking chores to do. I've thought about that I would love to have lived back then, but I would sure want to be a man. I wouldn't have wanted to have been a woman.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Do you think that um well, how did we maintain the population? How did we develop from that from a warring society?

SPEAKER_04 24:37

I guess.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

And that had a lot of common sense, a lot of smarts, and they didn't mind to fight for what they believed in. When it was all said and done, we came out on top and the rest is history. We just grew along with the times. Were they fighting like every day or no, there were periods of Indian raids. They would they would come in and well let's take the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, July the 4th, 1776. Um the Cherokees were planning a big raid into McDowell County or down the Catawba River. McDowell was just one stop on their way. Most of the settlement was along the Catawba because that was the best farmland. Um, it was a major waterway, there was a lot of game, there was fish in the river. That's where everybody wanted to live. And you had all these rich alluvial fields for cultivation. So that that was where everybody wanted to be and where the concentration of settlements were. Right. So when the Cherokees planned these raids, they came down the Catawba. And shortly after the declaration was signed, the ink wasn't really even dry on it. A few days later, they came into McDowell County and they started up in Crooked Creek, and and th there were people killed all the way down to Morganton. That was yeah, and this was what prompted the Council of Safety to say to Griffith Rutherford, okay, you gotta do something about this. So he immediately started to amass members of the local militia. We had had a militia since the settlements began to be established. But it was made up of these farmers you were talking about. They were not trained fighters. They learned their tactics from the Native American adversaries and from um just common sense, and they didn't have sophisticated weapons or um fine horses or uniforms. They were just old farmers and they would drill every once in a while. And it was usually more like a picnic than a military maneuver. It was uh they'd take the wife and kids and grandma and they'd pack a picnic lunch, and everybody would go out and to the bottoms over in Pleasant Gardens on John McDowell's land, and they would have a a militia muster, and for a few days they would practice drilling and whatever, and that was the only training these guys had had. But after the after these major raids, the uh Council of Safety sent Griffith Rutherford to take care of it, so he amassed the largest fighting force that the area had ever known. It was some 2,400 men from different not just from McDowell, but from places like Wilkes and uh Calwell and Catawba and Burke.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

So he meant business.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

He meant business, and they mustered at Kathy's Fort.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Now I don't know where Kathy's Fort is.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Well, I didn't either. And I apologize to anyone who has read the book that I misinformed, but I have an excuse and I'm determined to give it. Kathy's Fort was supposedly built at Turkey Cove. That's in the Woodlawn area really. Yes. And there is a state highway historical marker there that says that Kathy's Fort is one mile from here, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

I know where the marker is.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Well, when I started working on the book and reading all these pension applications, all these guys, down to a man, said Kathy's Fort was one mile down the river from Pleasant Gardens. Well, obviously that's not in Turkey Cove.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

So I start trying to figure out, okay, where's one mile down the river from Pleasant Gardens? And the only starting point that I had for Pleasant Gardens was the McDowell House that's still standing, that Joseph McDowell was supposed to have built. So about a mile down the river from there, mile and a half, would have taken you approximately to um the bend of the river where Nork and the Catawpa run together. And I thought that'd be a great place, yeah. So I go looking for land grants and I find one way back for George Kathy.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Really?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

So ding ding, you know, that was where it was, I th I thought. But then that story began to unravel. Uh first of all, it was decided that Joseph McDowell really didn't build that house.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

The w the one over here Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

It was built by his son, and it's not nearly as old as everybody thought it was. And John McDowell's actual home and Joseph's, his son, later on, was about a mile west of there. And that was confirmed by deeds, old deeds.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Well, that puts it up close to the Carson House, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:21

It no, not quite. If you know where Major Connolly Road is, I do. It would be somewhere in that area.

SPEAKER_04 30:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

And so that put me back a mile from my starting point.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

So one mile from there would bring me up to about the McDowell House itself or in that vicinity. And lo and behold, George Cathy had another land grant right there joining Hunting John McDowell's property. Huh. So a man named William Brown, who lives in this county, who you need to have on this program to talk about Kathy's Fort, he discovered it. He was able to to figure it out. He found the George Kathy Grant that I could not find. And he was able to accurately position Kathy's Fort. Now, if you want to get more confused.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

I do.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I believe um that there may have been another Kathy's Fort that was in Turkey Cove, maybe prior to George Kathy's Fort. But it was probably a fortification of William Cathy's home where some of those far-flung settlers could go if they needed to. And that's just an idea um that's being explored by those smarter than me. But um anyway, Kathy's Fort in Pleasant Gardens, adjoining Hunting John McDowell, okay became the major location. It was a military outpost. It was a garrisoned fort, and it was where Griffith Rutherford's troops assembled and began their trek over the mountains to the Cherokee towns in 76.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Well, 2,400 troops, that's that's quite a group to be moving up through the valley.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

So they went up probably I have heard, and I think I have hiked an area that was kind of uh we had to beat the brush a little bit, but it was called Rutherford Trace. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00 32:47

That's what they call the route he took. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

All right.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

And there's been controversy down through the years as to just which portions of that are correct, but that's always going to be the way it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Because obviously there are things we're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

So he went up through Catawba, maybe up by the falls, you think?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I don't think he went by the falls exactly. If you've ever been to Catawba Falls, you'll know that's you can't get horses, and they were driving about 300 head of cattle, by the way. Really? To f you know, for beef to feed them.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

And how are you going to get 300 head of cattle up Catawba Falls?

SPEAKER_04 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I think they kind of went around that, but it was in the general area.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Huh. So then they get up to Black Mountain and then they just They follow the Swannor River.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Okay and you know, and and spread out. And I'm not an expert on the Rutherford trace, but they uh went into all of the Cherokee settlements. The they were divided into the the overhill, the middle, and the valley towns, and they were in all of those.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Well, they pretty much wiped them out, didn't they?

SPEAKER_00 34:01

They pretty much did. And that put a a calm to everything that was happening here. But by about 1780, when we were trying to fight the loyalists in the area by that time, they were able to regroup and come back and launch some more raids in this area.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

The the Cherokee were? Mm-hmm. Boy, they were a tenacious group. They were indeed. Pretty much the Cherokee take a take a beating up there in Black Mountain, all except for these subsequent raids. So now you've got the loyalists. Are they are are they cherry picking the rest of the people and trying to kill them while the Revolutionary War is going on? I mean, what's what's happening in in McDowell County? Is there is there genuine turmoil or are they kind of getting along or what's happening?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Well, they had to live and just day-to-day consumed a lot of their time and effort. And when they were not fighting Indians, they had to farm, they had to to build, uh, raise livestock, raise children. It was um a battle just to exist on the frontier in those days.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

But they were doing it with one eye, as I said, on the tree line, because they never knew when when something might happen. And then Lord Cornwallis sent a man named Patrick Ferguson into the South to organize the loyalist and to try to put a stop to what he called the damn rebels. And one of those was uh Joseph McDowell of Pleasant Gardens. He was a captain in the militia. One was his cousin Joseph McDowell from Quaker Meadows near Morganton. He was an officer in the militia, and his brother Charles McDowell was was uh the head dog, as my dad used to say, in the militia for this region. And they were having some some success in organizing the Patriots, and they had had won some of these small battles. And Cornwallis wanted to put a stop to that, so he sent Ferguson in, and Ferguson was running roughshod over everything and everybody and threatening and trying to recruit support and recruit loyalist sympathizers and intimidate non-sympathizers into coming over to his side.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Now Ferguson was he's kind of a rough cookie, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

He didn't He was indeed. He was he was British. Yeah. You know, we did not have many Brits actually here in the county, but he was one of them.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

He he didn't give much quarter, did he?

SPEAKER_00 37:11

No, and he didn't get much. Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Right. Now he was at Kings Mountain, wasn't he? Mm-hmm. Okay. But he wasn't killed at Kings Mountain, was he? Oh was he? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah. Uh the first guy to take a shot at him, so the legend goes, was a young man from Old Fort.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Really?

SPEAKER_00 37:32

But his gun misfired. And his father-in-law, a 64-year-old guy named Robert Young, was standing beside of him. And he said, Let's see what Sweet Lips can do. Sweet Lips was his rifle that he had named after his wife. And he claimed to have fired the shot that killed Ferguson. Really? But so many bullets hit him that we'll never know who really killed him.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

While we're on that, do you want to tell m talk a little bit about that? There's we're always talking about the over mountain victory trail. You want to talk about that a little bit? What those guys were from Tennessee, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Some of them. Well, let's go back to 1780, and Patrick Ferguson is here.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

And some of his troops were beaten around the country down about Dysertsville, down on the McDowell and Rutherford County line, where Highway 64 runs today.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

And Charles McDowell, the leader of the militia, a lot of good old McDowell County boys were were in it. They got wind of the fact that he was going to be there. And they were going to ambush him down there. And Ferguson's troops, according to stories that I've read, took the wrong road and and the plan kind of lost its punch. But they ran into each other down on Cane Creek. And they had a fight, and some on both sides were killed. And both sides claimed that they were victorious, but really it was kind of a draw. Okay. But it opened the eyes of the local men that they couldn't do this by themselves. They were no match for Ferguson. So they were going to go across the mountains to the Watauga settlements in East Tennessee and up in far flung western North Carolina and get some help. So that's what they did. And while they were going home to kiss their wife goodbye, because most of them lived right in the area, and they were plundering about the area, getting supplies together and getting back together to go across to Watauga. They ran into another band of Ferguson's forces at a place called Allen's Mountain here in McDowell County. And I'll bet a lot of people never heard of that.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Allen's Mountain is right behind my house. In fact, I live on it. But it's not called that anymore. It's called something different today. But it was Allen's Mountain in the day, and there was a man named John Allen who lived there. And some of Ferguson's men had gone to John Allen's to, as they said, refresh themselves after the battle down on Cane Creek. Now was John Allen a loyalist? Did he welcome them? Did they just find it a convenient place to stop and rest? Was he even there at the time? Who knows? But they were there and some of these Patriot guys ran into them there at the foot of the mountain and they had another little fight. So there were actually two skirmishes in southeastern McDowell County on the same day, September 12, 1780.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

My goodness. Well, let me ask you this. I have always contended that this over Mountain Victory group, you know, that came out of Tennessee and all that, that they weren't uh patriots as much as they were just landowners who didn't want the British muddling in their affairs. Uh would you agree with that or do you think they were true patriots?

SPEAKER_00 41:56

I think they were true patriots. You do? I do think so. I'm sure that well, we know that nobody in this area wanted the British into their affairs, but they had good reason. They had been um overtaxed, they had had unscrupulous leadership, they were not allowed to do things that they had come to this country with every intention of doing and exercising freedom and and free will, and here they were still bound and beholden to someone they didn't want to be beholden to.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

But these guys that came across the mountain and walked all the way from Sycamore Shoals to King's Mountain, some of them barefoot, I don't think you do that unless you you are a patriot. I think freedom meant more to them than life itself. And some of them paid with their lives.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Well, the the casualties at King's Mountain for the over mountain men were w well below what it was for the British, though, right? Absolutely, yeah. Because they they practiced guerrilla warfare. I don't know if it was called that at the time, probably not, but they were able to get behind the trees and move and shoot.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah, they had brains enough to realize that you were safer behind a bush than you were standing there in your fancy uniform just begging for it, you know. But um, yeah. They walk they walked a long way to get there, hungry, cold. Some of them lost their horses and had to had to walk.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Um they were were not well equipped. They just had a burning desire in their hearts.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

I have heard that once the battle was over, the over mountain men wanted to basically do to Ferguson what he had done to the Americans or to the Patriots, and that was to kill 'em all. But somebody held them back. Is that right? Do you recall anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yes, I'm sure that there were a lot of people there, whether they had come over the mountain or not, um, that wanted to give no quarter.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

And I'm sure that on both sides at at times during the battle, no quarter was given. But overall, I do think they were held back from doing what some of them would like to have done.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard. What about cowpins? That was before King's Mountain, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:56

No, that was after.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Oh, it was after. Well, that was a pretty decisive battle, right? Did that involve the over mountain folks? Some of them.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Some of them. Uh it involved the McDowell County guys that were part of uh the militia from here. If you remember the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Um, there was a lot of Hollywood in that too, but the concept of the battle, the the maneuver, the tactic that Daniel Morgan came up with to put the Patriot militia on the front line to fake the British out and have the main body over the rise over the bunker.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Drew 'em you drew the British in.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

The McDowell County men were right there on the front line.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Really?

SPEAKER_00 45:50

And there was one of them whose name I can't recall that that stated in his pension application that Captain Joseph McDowell gave the order to fire. So he would have been Captain Joseph was uh Pleasant Gardens Joseph. So he would have been, if you watch the movie and you see Mel Gibson give the order to fire, that was Joseph McDowell.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

Really? Uh and cowpins was a major event. It it was, I don't know if it was a turning point, but it was major, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Well, King's Mountain has been called the turning point. Cowpins has been called the turning point. In my opinion, King's Mountain was the turning point, and cowpins put the ice in on the cake.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Really? Okay. Well, I kind of got off track here with the Native Americans. Let's go back. Let's go back to the Native Americans. The McDowell House that's out here, that's is that the original location?

SPEAKER_00 46:56

It's on the original location where it was built, but it was not built by Joseph McDowell.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

As everyone thought for decades. And I still have an Aggie thought in the back of my mind, how could that many generations of McDowell descendants have been wrong? But it was surveyed by a noted architectural historian who showed me the nails that it that were used to construct it, uh, the boards. They were not 1700s construction. It was more 1830s.

SPEAKER_04 47:39

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

So it was built by James Moffat McDowell, Joseph's son.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

I want to jump around a little bit. I've always heard this story that now we're in the Civil War, okay? Okay. And and I know you that's not your main body of expertise, but I've always heard this story that the Union Army uh surrounded the Carson House and told the slaves they could be free. And that some of the slaves said, No, we don't want to, we're gonna stay here with the Carson House. D do you know anything about that?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

I have never heard that particular story. I think maybe there are two stories that kind of got joined there. First of all, it was a contingent of Stoneman's Raiders.

SPEAKER_04 48:38

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Stoneman was not with them, he was their commanding officer, but the man over them at the time was a man named Alvin Gillam. And he was the leader of the group that came through by Carson House. And mainly what these guys were looking for, the war was essentially over. This was April of 1865. Oh my gosh. And it was over in just a day or two. April 9th. But they were just looking for stuff to plunder and steal, and that was basically what they did. And um there were slaves present, according to a school teacher named Emma Rankin, who was boarding at the Carson House and teaching their children. And she wrote an account of what happened. If you've never read it, it's very interesting. The Carson House has a copy. And um she said that there were slaves present, but she did not say anything about anyone telling them that they could be free.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

I think possibly some of them may have left with this group with Gillam's forces, and some of them chose to stay. But the story about the slaves saying, you know, we're gonna stay here, I think that came from James Harvey Greenley's journal. He was a prosperous planter from up near Woodlawn, a slave owner, and uh he wrote in his journal after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and he said something like, I told those who worked for me that they were free, and after consideration they said it was poor freedom to have to starve to death, and they chose to remain.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

Do you just personally based on your knowledge, do you think the slaves were treated brutally, poorly? How how do you think they were treated treated at the Carson House and um anywhere here in the any of the plantations in MacDow County?

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Well, of course I have no way to know. Right. Um I don't personally and I don't know anyone personally who believes that slavery was good or right or that it should ever been allowed to continue.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

But it was a part of our history, whether we like it or not.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

And I do think from reading and studying what scholars have written that Western North Carolina was an area that did not have large farms and plantations and sugar cane and cotton and all this stuff, and therefore did not have need of as many slaves. And you might have a household that had one or two, one to help with the household chores and one to help with the farming. And I've read stories about how they became like family. Right. But I'm not saying this was the norm.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

I'm just saying that I think they were better treated in McDowell County than they would have been in Mississippi or Alabama. That's just my feeling. Right. Um, I'm sure they were no happier being slaves here than they would have been anywhere, that you know, obviously. But I don't think they were brutalized here like they were in other in other locations.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

Well, I think that's interesting. I've I've always tried to get the picture in my mind as to how things developed here in Magdow County, and uh and I've contended that few people, few landowners had slaves because uh the slaves were expensive. That was an expensive commodity, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Right. And that's the reason why the larger number of slaves were owned by the more prosperous people. Right. Like the Carsons. Right. Um, people like that. The Higgins that Higgins Township is named for, uh the Murphys, the Conleys, people, you know, that that we know were prosperous people in this area. They had more slaves than others. The best article or the best work that I've ever read on slavery in western North Carolina was written by a Burke County man, Dr. Edwin Pfeiffer. And the title of the pamphlet is called Slavery in Microcosm. And he talks about he gives percentages and um graphs and figures, but he also said something that stuck with me, that the people who came here from Scotland and Ireland and Germany and and all these places um came with nothing.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

And they saw slavery, which was already well established when they got to America. It was already established in Philadelphia. And Philadelphia. Really? Yes, of course. That's a it started. It started in the north because that was where people lived. When they came to to America and landed, they landed in Philadelphia and Delaware and Maryland and Virginia. Those were the the seaports that they came into where the big towns began to develop early on.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

Well, I guess that's logical, but I always thought of slavery as, you know, South Carolina, Mississippi, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Yeah, I think a lot of people have that misconception.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

But you know, we did have it here and sure and um but Dr. Pfeiffer said that it was not a moral issue with these people. It was an economic issue.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

And they did not see it, they di they did not feel these deep moral obligations because their thinking had been tempered by hard times. And they saw it as a means of relieving themselves of so much backbreaking work. It was not and also it was legal, therefore it must be okay. That was the way they looked at it.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

Sure. Yeah. Okay, let's let me switch subjects again. Now this is way, way off base here. Uh I am trying to get someone to come and talk to me about we're we're up in the 20th century now. Uh I'm trying to get somebody to come and talk to me about the they call it the massacre at uh Marion Manufacturing. Have you ever heard of something like that?

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Oh yeah. It was a a major textile mill, Marion Manufacturing.

SPEAKER_03 56:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

You know, textiles and furniture is what built Marion.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

And it was booming at the time, and labor conditions sucked.

SPEAKER_04 56:57

Oh, really? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

And they had a major strike. And it turned violent and a number of people died.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

That's what I heard.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

And this was not the only strike that happened. There was one also at the Clinchville Mill here, and then there were major strikes in South Carolina, eastern North Carolina. This was just one of many, and it took a while for it to get here. It started in other areas and and moved up the mountain. But that was the Marion Massacre, it's been termed.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

And depending on who you talked to many years ago when there were people still living who were there, uh, depending on who you talked to, who massacred who.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

Yeah, I I've heard both sides because the marchers, the the protesters I'll call them now, they were were they pro-union, is that right? Am I do I have that right? Or they were just lobbying for better working conditions, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Both, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

But they were certainly lobbying for better conditions, but I think the union was involved. Now don't quote me on that. Right. I'm not a 20th century expert. You lose me when you get those I have read the book and it was very well done. And uh but there are got there's got to be somebody with more expertise on that one than me.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

So what is your favorite period of history for whatever reason when the most stuff got done or um yeah, I don't care why. What's your favorite period of history for McGill County?

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Was I would love to have been with the first guy that laid eyes on this area here.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

Yeah, I bet.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Just to walk across the mountain. If you if you're coming up Interstate 40, you're you know, down there along about the county line, you get that first look at the Blue Ridge.

SPEAKER_04 59:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

And that still does something to me. Yeah. When I'm driving along and see that, and I would love to have been with the first group to ever see that.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

That would have been fascinating. I I'd have to admit, but you didn't have a cell phone or TV or anything.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Thank God.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Well, is there anything we've already blown an hour, I can't believe it. Is there anything you want to talk to me about?

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Oh, I could talk to you all day, but I guess we better call a halt. All right. I would like to say how proud I am to be an American.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

And being asked to participate in America's 250th birthday has been a real honor.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Yeah, uh, can you see I went uh as I told you when you got here, I went down to the railroad depot to hear you talk about the 250th birthday. Do you want to talk about that a little bit more? Because uh you delivered uh an informational talk down there that I thought was just fascinating. Well, thank you. Tell me a little bit about that, about your pride and and being here and the 250th anniversary, however you want to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Well, I think that some of it comes from my family, certainly. My parents were patriotic people. They respected what our forefathers went through so that we could have freedom, and they were always appreciative of the sacrifices made by our service people. My dad was an old Navy man, he was in World War II.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

Great.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

He spent one day on the USS North Carolina, and the basset needed a gunner's mate. And so he was just out of gunnery school, and he was taken to the basset and boarded the basset in the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

Uh yeah, they call that a balsam's chair, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

And he was on the basset when they were called to rescue the survivors of the Indianapolis. Oh, really? And he was on there on the rescue mission, and he never told me this. I guess that's the kind of thing you don't tell your little girl.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:57

Well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

So I overheard him at a family reunion telling one of my adult male cousins this story. And I was just awestruck that this man had done that, and I didn't I didn't never knew it. But the Landis people, that was my dad's people, they fought in every war from the French and Indian down to Afghanistan or whatever, you know. They they've been in in every conflict, and so I've just always had deep respect and regard for our service people.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

That's notable. I th I think that's great. But but you said something there that I I have to go back. The Indianapolis, as I recall, once it sank, they had quite a few survivors in the beginning, but then the they were in the water and the sharks got 'em, isn't that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

And your dad was part of the rescue operation.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

He said that by the time they got he they were not told why they were going to this location.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

And he said by the time they got there there was a storm either coming or already upon them. And he said that the waves were so high that when they started to put their little rubber rafts, whatever you call the little lifeboats, out there, that it was just like sticking it up on a perpendicular wall.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

So they had to fight the elements and try to get these survivors into these little boats and then back to the ship, and then they would take turns. Some of the guys would be in the rescue rafts, and the others would form a human chain to pass these injured men up onto the ship. And he said that at times some of them were so injured from being in the water that long that their skin would just come off in his hands.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:07

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

So it was it was a terrible thing. But and he said they had a one doctor on board the bassett that was just out of med school. It was the first time he'd ever actually done any practicing. And that he managed to save all of these men long enough to get them to to a port hospital. I think there was one man who was deceased when they put him on the boat, but the rest of them made it. He didn't lose anybody.

unknown 1:04:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

Well, I know that there were survivors from the Indianapolis, but boy, they those boys had a rough go.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

Okay. Anything else you want to tell me?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

I want to tell you what a great thing I think you're doing by having this program.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:57

Well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

And I'm glad I learned finally what a podcast is. Somebody asked me once if my book was available on Amazon, and I said, Well, you know, I thought the Amazon was a river in the jungle. I thought a podcast had something to do with a seed pod blowing off an oak tree or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Well, before you leave, I'm gonna make sure that you listen, know how to listen to your own podcast anyway, because this has been a good one. I've really enjoyed it. There's uh first off, thank you so much for coming. I know you're busy and I appreciate you taking uh the time out to come here and talk to me. However, having said that, I uh I'm gonna be rude enough to ask you to maybe come back and talk to me some more.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Well, I'm gonna be rude enough to say sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

Great. Thank you to uh Answan. I want to say again. how much I enjoy this book. Uh I'm actually reading this book, The Other Side of the River. Uh I don't know if you can get it, uh, but do you think it w somebody could buy this somewhere? I think the Carson House and uh Mountain Gateway Museum probably have some Okay, you said that, so I I really recommend that you, if you're a McDowell resident or Western North Carolina, or you just like a good read, I recommend that you find this book. It's called The Other Side of the River by Anne Swann. Anne Landis Swann. I I I think it's just I think it's really good. It's a good read that you just sit down and and read it. I want to let you know that I'm still taking and thank you for those of you that have emailed me. I'll try to get back to you. You can email me at On the Porch with Jim Williams. That's one word on the porch with Jim Williams at uh gmail.com so please email me if you have any ideas uh if there's anything you want to do or you have any criticisms although I don't take criticism well so maybe don't don't do that. If you have any ideas if you know someone that wants to come up and talk to me or if you're someone that wants to come up and talk to me email me and let me know that. Thank you all for listening our numbers are growing I think I have about almost a little over 400 followers now which for Marion is pretty good. So thank you all very much and I'll see you next week on the porch